FROM EWTN PUBLISHING: ‘Pope Leo XIV has seen and experienced the Church in more contexts than perhaps any other person currently living…’ 

Matthew Bunson BooksMay 28, 2025

Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from Matthew Bunson’s new book, Leo XIV: Portrait of the First American Pope, from EWTN Publishing and available at EWTNRC.com.

The pontificate of Pope Leo XIV is still only days old. And yet, there is a sense of clarity and mission about it that began from his walk onto the world stage on May 8. Among the reasons for the sense of certainty and immediate stability is the deliberate decision he made to dress in the traditional vesture of the popes, adding to the papal white soutane and pellegrina the red mozzetta and stole. This was not a rejection of the deliberate simplicity of Pope Francis but a conscious effort to connect himself “and with it his pontificate” to his predecessors and the long customs and symbols of the papacy and the Church. 

This drawing of a line of continuity and integration goes far beyond the merely symbolic or sartorial. There is a manifest desire to achieve the integration of recent pontificates, the Second Vatican Council, and the Fathers of the Church.  This is not some effort to placate perceived factions or camps in some ecclesiastical power struggle. Rather, it is mining the rich treasures of teaching that characterized the great Fathers, the Council, and the modern popes to build unity in the Church in a fractured era. Pope Leo XIV believes that these teachings can impel the Church toward unity rooted in Christ, and prepare all of us for the immense task of evangelization to which all of us are called.